The 29th Annual Clinical Symposium on Advances in Skin & Wound Care: "The Conference for Prevention and Healing" will take place this month at The Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada (http://www.symposiumonwoundcare.com). Although a mirage is an optical illusion in the desert caused by sunlight reflected off the road by heat, the 29th annual conference is indeed real, tangible, and palpable. This year's conference provides an intersection in the heat of the desert to reflect on the mission of the clinical symposium and its indispensible linkages to the journal of Advances in Skin & Wound Care and the people who make it work.
Clinical Symposium on Advances in Skin and Wound Care
The perpetuation of the annual conference to its 29th year is a testimony to its founder Sharon Baranoski, MSN, RN, CWCN, APN, MAPWCA, FAAN, and to the rotating planning panel, as well as the constructive and continuous feedback loop that speakers, wound care practitioner attendees, and exhibitors and supporters provide to sustain and improve the conference. The symposium exemplifies the Institute of Medicine's call for interprofessional collaboration practice, joint learning, and clinical practices emphasizing patient-centered care, quality, safety, and better outcomes for our patients.
The 29th annual conference reflects the current learning needs of practicing clinicians and organizations that are in the arena and participate in the daily struggle against the devastating complications of chronic wounds. A unique interprofessional feature of the conference includes the opportunity for hands-on skills development through interactive preconference workshops and collaborations with the American Professional Wound Care Association and the American College of Hyperbaric Medicine. In addition, postconference examinations are offered to individual clinicians: The American Board of Wound Healing Physician Certification in Wound Care, the Physician Certification in Hyperbaric Medicine, the Certified Hyperbaric Specialist, and the Certified Hyperbaric and Wound Specialist.
Our nation's participation in 3 wars and the polytrauma inflicted on our service members has enhanced our capabilities to save lives and learn about caring for the complex wounds and the "whole person" concept. This year's keynote speaker, Capt Jennifer Town, MSN, RN, Nurse Corps, US Navy (Retired), will discuss the "Continuum of Care for Wounded, Ill, and Injured Service Members: From Battlefield to Reintegration."
Keeping our promise to focus on patient-centered outcomes, the closing keynote address by Danielle Lavallee, PhD, PharmD, exemplifies "Patient Voices/Patient-Centered Outcomes: Rethinking Evidence-Based Practice." We look forward to seeing you at what will prove to be an exciting conference!
Advances in Skin & Wound Care: The International Journal for Prevention and Healing
As we reflect on the journal's 27th year of publication, we should remember our founder, the late Dr Roberta S. Abruzzese, the original editor-in-chief of our journal, formally known as Decubitus. Her vision paved the way to the journal's development and growth. In the intervening years, we have evolved from a paper system of editorial processes to the online editorial manager, thanks to the resources of Wolters Kluwer and Ovid technologies. Our editorial decision-making platform facilitates a rapid manuscript assessment cycle, with time to first decision from manuscript submission at about 48 days. The various metrics and trends about online manuscript usage provide a trending on our website of the most accessed and utilized articles, such as
* Arterial Ulcer Checklist,
* The Braden Scale for Predicting Pressure Sore Risk: Reflections after 25 Years, and
* Heel Pressure Ulcers: Purple Heel and Deep Tissue Injury.
In addition, we track our digital activity related to the journal, counting 210,000 online visitors in 2013. We have blogs, quick polls, wound care cases, news updates, videos, article collections, and other online features. And, we have enhanced the frequency of Facebook and Twitter posts.
In 2013, the journal enhanced its impact factor to 1.6, with international articles and meaningful studies (1.5 in 2012). Manuscripts are submitted from a global market including Brazil, Turkey, Spain, Italy, India, Hong Kong, Germany, Mexico, and China, as well as the United States and Canada.
We must thank our readers for their steadfast loyalty for the nearly 3 decades of our existence. Our readers interpret the thought and content of our ever-expanding journal articles and apply the relevant clinical research and best practices to their patients to prevent and heal wounds. Our editorial board and highly dedicated peer-review panel provide rigorous peer review of submitted manuscripts.
As we maintain our status as the journal of Advances in Skin & Wound Care, we look to the future, with the need to keep pace with technology and timely content delivery through multimedia, the print journal, video, and venues for customer participation.
Richard "Sal" Salcido, MD, EdD